


don't you want to get out of cape cod

by Overdressedtokill (SkyeStan)



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Politics, F/M, The Ward Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-06
Updated: 2014-09-06
Packaged: 2018-02-16 08:09:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2262243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkyeStan/pseuds/Overdressedtokill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>senator’s son grant ward meets an anarchist and falls in love or maybe just wants the truth. he’s kind of a mess.</p>
            </blockquote>





	don't you want to get out of cape cod

He caught her up on the third floor, near his childhood bedroom.  What Grant Ward was doing on the third floor to begin with was entirely a personal matter, and had absolutely nothing to do with the party in the great hall, two floors below.

“You’re not supposed to be up here,” he announced.  It had taken him too long to say anything at all. First, he had seen her, and then, he had felt the bizarre need to watch her, like they were in a zoo and she was a tiger behind glass.  She carried herself like a predator, certainly, and maybe that was it: Grant hadn’t wished to disturb her as she stalked her prey.  Until, of course, her gaze had lingered too long on his door, and his anxiety got the better of his curiosity.  So he blurted out the most obvious statement he could possibly think of, because not even three years of debate team could truly iron out his awkwardness.

She was unfazed.  Her hand found her shoulder, her hips swayed, her body telling him that she was simple and helpless and feminine.  He didn’t believe her, but he stared, anyway.  He always had been weak.  “I’m sorry,” she said, in a low, sweet voice.  “I was looking for the bathroom.”

He didn’t recognize her.  It had taken him this long to realize it, but he had never seen this girl before in his life.  And he knew everyone.  He was supposed to know everyone.  Every family, every lineage, pedigree, and detail.  But she was an unknown.  An intruder.

“How did you even get into this party?” he asked.  “It’s invitation only.”

She looked offended.  She frowned at him, with a prettiness in her mouth that had to have been pre-meditated.  She opened the small clutch bag at her side and pulled out her phone.  “I have an invitation,” she said.  

He checked the screen of her phone. “Muffy Masterson doesn’t exist,” he told her, pulling back. “And besides, there are no Mastersons in Massachusetts.”

“There are, actually,” she said.  Her tone had changed, from fluid and light to something much darker.  Much more sure.  “They just don’t exist to you because they can’t afford to live in a gated community.”

He crossed his arms.  “Are you a reporter?  Is that what this is?”

She grinned at him.  Like he was being funny.  He hadn’t intended to be funny.  She was making him insecure, doubtful under his family’s roof, at his family’s party.  “Reporters don’t go after the truth anymore,” she said.  “I do.”

He reached for her wrist.  “You need to go back downstairs.”

She lifted her arm away from his grasp, glaring.  “I’m fine here, thanks.”

“You’re trespassing,” he told her.  “You could get arrested.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” she said, with a nonchalance that unnerved him.  “Cops love me.” No, that’s what unnerved him.  The knowing in her tone, of who she was, of what she was.  He didn’t know her personally, he hadn’t known of her five minutes prior, and yet here she was, exclaiming her undeniable existence with a kind of self-assuredness that Grant could only envy.

“Your name isn’t Muffy,” he said.

She cocked her head.  “But it fooled security, didn’t it?”

  
  


He wanted to know how she did it.  How she’d avoided being sniffed out, ridiculed.  She should’ve been spotted.  The more he looked at her, really looked, the more he realized how little she fit in.  Her dress, while lovely, hung too loose on her frame.  Her makeup was too dark for spring, her hair too long and too dark.  Yet no one had seen her.

“Most people assumed I was an escort,” she told him, as if reading his mind.  “No one wants to point fingers, ask who hired the prostitute.  Not here.  So I got away with it.”

“You’re…” he should have stopped staring.  At first, he’d been able to pass it off as observations, but the longer he looked the less convinced he was that he was not just staring at her for his own pleasure.  “Who are you?”

“You don’t need to know that,” she told him.  “It’s better for you, really.”

“Why are you here?” he asked.  A small part of him wondered why he wasn’t making good on his threat, why he hadn’t called security, why he hadn’t dragged her back to the ballroom.  She was dangerous.  Not dangerous like his father or his older brother, but certainly in her own right.

“I’m looking for answers,” she said.  “Plain and simple.  Why are you here?”

He had the good sense to look indignant.  “This is my family home!”

“At a party your family is hosting,” she told him.  “The elusive middle son, always sneaking off.”

That.  That was a line he did not want crossed.  He felt himself snarling before he could stop it.  “Excuse me?”

“The Vanity Fair article?” she asked.  “The one about the next generation of dynasties.  You, Maynard Ward, Dana Ward.  The three brothers.  The senator’s sons.”

“So you read about us in a magazine,” he said.  “Are you trying to sleep with Maynard?  Is that it?”  Now that was an unjust accusation.  And to throw her to Maynard in and of itself would be cruel.

She wrinkled her nose in disgust.  Grant found this reassuring, though he didn’t know why.

“I’m interested in one thing and one thing only, in concerns to Maynard Ward,” she said.  His brother’s name sounded like a swear in her mouth.  Which was the truth.  It was simply the first time Grant had heard it aloud.  “I want him, and your father, brought to justice.”

  
  


That should’ve disturbed him.  That should’ve sent him running.  He should try to silence her.  Buy her off.  Bribe her.  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She shook her head.  “Of course not.”

“And if I did know what you were talking about,” he said, before he could stop himself.  “Why would you risk telling me?  Wouldn’t you be worried I’d interfere with your little-” he gestured at her, at his bedroom door.  “Mission?”

“Nope,” she said.  “I mean, I would have been.  But if you were going to kick me out, you would have done it long before we started talking.  And you know, Grant Ward,” she stood up on the tips of her toes to reach his ear.  He leaned down, despite his better judgement.  “You want the same thing I want.”

He felt the urge to place his hand on her back, to steady her.  Instead, he balled his hands into fists and shoved them into his pockets.  “And what do I want?”

“You want the world to see them for what they really are,” she said.  “You want the truth about your family exposed.  You want Rose to-”

He pulled back.  “What did you just say?”

She blinked.  “Your sister.  You want to be able to see your sister.”

She knew too much.  She knew far too much.  “What- How- Do you want money?  Is that it?” he asked.  “How much?”

“I don’t want money,” she told him.  “I want the truth.  I want bad men to suffer.”

“There are a lot of bad men,” he told her.  “Why my family?”

“Because,” she told him.  And now her hand was on his wrist.  “I thought I might find an ally in the Ward family’s middle son.”

He swallowed.  “You planned this.”

“Yes.”

“Who are you?”

He liked her smile.  He hated her smile.  He was confused by her smile, to say the least.  “Call me Skye.”

“Is that your real name?” he asked.

She shrugged.  “Real enough, I think,” she said.  “I didn’t like my old one, much.”

“Well what was it?” he asked.

She grinned, then, tossed her hair over her shoulder.  “Not tonight,” she said.  “Maybe not ever.”

“You know everything about me,” he argued.  “And I still have no idea how.”

She reminded him of a cat.  That was it.  Smug and proud and puffed-up, waiting to strike out.  “Information is everywhere,” she told him.  “It’s in the wind.  You can’t stop it.”

“You’re a hacker,” he said.  “You’re-” He remembered something.  Something whispered from father to Maynard, two nights ago.  Things were beginning to click into place.  Not entirely, but enough.  “You’re the Rising Tide.”

“Well now I feel famous,” she teased.  “And it’s more than one person, you know.”

Why would she- How could she- It felt wrong, knowing these things.  Like he was betraying everything his father had worked for.  “We should go into my room,” he said.  “Just in case.”

“Isn’t that why you stopped me, though?” she asked.  “So I wouldn’t go in here?”

“That was before,” he said.  He turned the knob and pulled her inside.  “Come on.”

  
  


“This feels kind of like we’re sneaking off to have sex, you know,” she said.

Oh.  Oh no.  Now it was ruined. He was ruined. .  He didn’t want to think about her like that, he had been trying so hard not to think of her like that!  And she could just joke about it?  In his childhood bedroom?  At his father’s party?

Why did it make her even more attractive?  What was  _wrong_ with him?

He’d had sex before.  At least five times.  He would not go all weak in the knees for some anarchist.  Even if she did want to take down his father.

“You should be so lucky,” he said.  How much time had passed?  Was that still an appropriate comeback?

“Wow,” she replied.  “You really are something, middle son.”

“And what are you?” he asked, watching as she swayed into his room, taking it in, taking more of his privacy than she already had.  “The eldest?”

She looked over her shoulder.  “The only.  No family.”

He decided to look at the carpet.  “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” she said.  “I’ve been an orphan forever.  Never had any parents to lose.”

“Would you like mine?” he asked.  He didn’t mean it.  He wouldn’t wish that on anyone.  Not even Maynard. 

In fact, Maynard could’ve been saved, if he had better parents.  All four of them could have been.  But it had been far too late for a very long time.

“No, I don’t think so,” she said.  “Do you mind if I take off my heels?”

“Go ahead.”

She sighed in relief.  He could see it in her posture, in the way she held her shoulders, her head.  She was relaxing.  She was beginning to like him.  He could’ve thought of this as his opportunity to get the upper hand.  To double-cross her.

It should have occurred to him.  He should have been cunning.  He was a Ward.  That was who he was supposed to be.  But he never even thought about it. The only thing he thought of, when she slipped off her high heels and dug her toes into the soft carpet, was that she was very, very tiny.

How could he ever intentionally hurt a creature so small?

How could a creature so small be so hard-hearted?

He should probably refer to her as a girl, or as Skye, and not as a creature.  Girls didn’t seem to like that.  But it was a just a stupid, silly thing he did.  A weird word quirk, coming from the books he’d read too much as a child.  A creature.  She was a girl.

“So,” she said.  “I didn’t expect us to move this quickly.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“I mean I didn’t think I’d be able to rope you in so easily,” she said.  “I figured I’d leave you my calling card, disappear into the night and then you’d be desperate to see me again.  That kind of thing.”

“You really have that much faith in yourself?” he asked.

She made a face.  “First: rude.  Second, yeah.  It’s worked before.”

“So you sneak into parties a lot, then.”

She made a noncommittal sort of noise.  “Only the fun ones.”

“So if your plan has been sped up,” he said.  “Then what’s part two?”

“Well,” she said.  She wandered over to his old desk, picked up his snow globe.  The one Rosie had gotten him.  She’d been so proud.

“Can you put that down?” he asked.  “You can play with something else.  Just not that.”

She gave him a confounded sort of look, and he was glad, if bitterly so, that for once she could be the one left with more questions than she had answers.  Just for a moment.  She set down the snowglobe.  “Part two is where I test your trust.”

“My trust?”

“Yeah,” she said.  “I give you and objective, and if you fulfill it, then we move on to part three.”

“I let you into my room,” he said.  “Doesn’t that show that I trust you?”

“Not enough,” she said.  “Not if you’re going to work for us.”

“Us.  Who is us?”

“Part two,” she reminded him. 

He sighed.  “What is part two?”

“Pull out of your deal with Quinn Consolidated.”

  
  


“Why?” he asked.  Which wasn’t a no, when he should have just said no.  No, my father would literally kill me.  No, it would be a scandal.  No, this was a terrible idea.  But all he wanted to know was why.

“That’s part three,” she told him.

“You can’t tell me anything else?”

She looked sheepish, but in a way that seemed entirely insincere.  “I can’t.”

He paused.  He looked at the snow globe, at her.  “Do you want to stay?”

She showed surprise, for the first time.  Something real.  Something genuine.  “I can’t.”

“Disappearing into the night?” he asked.

She smirked. “That was the plan.”

“You’re really not going to tell me anything?” he asked.  And he wasn’t sure why he bothered.  Secrets were his lifeblood, and she looked like she had more than he could even fathom.

“Not a peep until the deal’s off,” she said.

“And then what?  You’ll find me?  Are you going to sneak into another party?” That would be nice, actually.  If she was to keep sneaking into galas, pulling him away from the crowd, and promising that she was going to destroy his family.  He liked this.  He liked it more than he liked pretending his family was anything other than garbage.

She approached him.  Breached his personal space.  Breathed his air.  Who was she?  Who did she even think she was?  How on earth had his night turned into this?

“You’ll find me,” she said.  “After the deal is off.”  She dusted off his lapel, and he bristled at her touch.  His lapel was pristine.  And she.  She had such tiny hands.

“You sound sure,” he said.

She was so close.  Too close.  She met his gaze.  “I only make bets I know I’ll win,” she said.

“That’s cheating,” he told her.

She laughed, lightly.  She didn’t really find it funny.  She didn’t really find him funny, either.  “So’s being born rich.”

“That’s not fair,” he said.

She needed to leave.  She needed to stay.  He needed air.  “Can I borrow a pen, middle son?”

“You should stop calling me that,” he told her.

“I don’t think I will.”

He was the first to step back.  “The stationary’s in the desk.”

“Stationary,” she said, with a little grin. “That’s adorable.  Does it have your name on it?”

He was ashamed, for the first time, of his stationary.  What hadn’t she taken from him tonight?  “Yes.”

“Adorable,” she repeated, putting his notepad out from the desk.  She scribbled something down for him.  “Where to find me, and what to say.  I’ll do the rest.”  She offered the note to him.  Take it or leave it, her hand said.  Take it.  “Grant?”

He took the note from her.  “You have terrible handwriting.”

“I work mostly with keyboards,” she said.  “We can’t all be in calligraphy club.”

“There is nothing wrong with calligraphy!” he protested.

“Defensive,” she noted.  She lingered on the edge of the bubble he’d put around himself, like she could see the invisible walls he was trying so hard to project.  “So should I just leave through the front door?  Because I was thinking I’d go out through the kitchen, but-”

“My window,” he said.  “I, um.  When I was younger, I built a lattice strong enough to climb up and down on.”

“Why?” she asked.

He resisted the urge to show any sort of discomfort.  “You seem to know quite a bit about my family,” he said.  “You tell me.”

“I don’t need to repeat what you already know,” she said.  “Now do I?”

“No,” he said.  “You don’t.”

  
  


She took a step back.  Another.  To his window, away from him.  But she did not drop eye contact, and he had yet to decide if he found that unnerving or not.

“We have a saying where I’m from: Follow the man who seeks the truth,” she said, with a knowing grin.  Because they were in on a secret, the two of them.  She was keeping his secrets.

“Doubt those who find it,” Grant replied.  “Doubt everything,  _mais ne doutez pas de vous-mêmes._ ”

“Well, you switched to French at the end, there,” she told him.  “So I suppose you win this round.”

“The quote was in French, originally,” he said.

“And you speak French.”

“I speak six languages.”

She shook her head.  “Rich kids.”

“What if I don’t go through with it?” he said.  “What if I don’t cancel the deal?”

She opened his window before sparing him a glance.  “I guess you’ll have to figure that out.”

“That doesn’t help,” Grant told her.

“Sucks,” she said.  She climbed out of his window like she’d been doing it her whole life.  So many questions and no answers.  She leaned her elbows on the windowsill.  “I’ll be seeing you, middle son.”  She winked at him.  Actually winked.  And disappeared into the night, like the heroine of a story and not a real, live girl.  Maybe she was made up.  Maybe he was in the middle of a very elaborate fantasy, brought on by the stress of yet another fundraiser.  People needed to stop giving his father money.

People deserved to know the truth, didn’t they?  He looked at the scrap of paper in his hand, half-expecting it to be blank.  It wasn’t.  The url, the name, what to type.  Still there.  Printed in her handwriting. An invitation.

An invitation he was actually something like happy to receive.

“Grant?”

He shoved the piece of paper into his pocket.  “Maynard?”

“You need to come back downstairs.  Mother is getting embarrassed by your absence.”

Of course.  Of course she was.  What did Skye know about his mother, he wondered?  There was so much to know.  So much to tell.  So much to reveal.

“Grant!”

For once, the voice did not startle him.  For once, Grant Ward felt brave.  For once, Grant Ward felt good.  He closed the window.  “Coming, Maynard.”


End file.
